CentOS - Nov 2009 - administering an MS Windows partition under Linux

Hi all,

If I have a dual-boot machine (Linux and Windows) would I have any
good tools under Linux that would allow me to look at the content of
the Windows boot partition, administer it, clean up the registry,
remove viruses if any, etc? The Windows installation seems to be so
defective as to be quite useless so I am trying to think of a good
strategy for dealing with the situation.

Thanks in advance for any and all advice.

Boris.

Boris Epstein wrote:
> Thanks in advance for any and all advice.
Pretty off topic but go build a PE disk, that is your
best bet

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

You'll need your original OS media.

nate

> If I have a dual-boot machine (Linux and Windows) would I have any
> good tools under Linux that would allow me to look at the content of
> the Windows boot partition, administer it, clean up the registry,
What about mounting the partition on Linux:
http://www.linuxtopia.org/online_books/centos_linux_guides/centos_linux_step
_by_step_guide/s1-q-and-a-windows.html

	Neil

--
Neil Aggarwal, (281)846-8957, http://www.JAMMConsulting.com
CentOS 5.4 KVM VPS $55/mo, no setup fee, no contract, dedicated 64bit CPU
1GB dedicated RAM, 40GB RAID storage, 500GB/mo premium BW, Zero downtime

Boris Epstein wrote on Fri, 6 Nov 2009 14:21:39 -0500:
> If I have a dual-boot machine (Linux and Windows) would I have any
> good tools under Linux that would allow me to look at the content of
> the Windows boot partition, administer it, clean up the registry,
> remove viruses if any, etc? The Windows installation seems to be so
> defective as to be quite useless so I am trying to think of a good
> strategy for dealing with the situation.
Why would you want to do that? If there's valuable data you can get them 
off the partition with Linux (CentOS can mount NTFS) and then reinstall 
your Windows to that partition. Actually the data on the partition should 
stay unharmed by a reinstallation or repair installation (you can do a 
repair installation from the install media).
When reinstalling Windows you may lose bootability to Linux and 
reestablish grub. There are lots of articles/tutorials on the net if you 
need help on that.

Kai

-- 
Kai Sch?tzl, Berlin, Germany
Get your web at Conactive Internet Services: http://www.conactive.com

On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 1:21 PM, Boris Epstein <borepstein at gmail.com>
wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> If I have a dual-boot machine (Linux and Windows) would I have any
> good tools under Linux that would allow me to look at the content of
> the Windows boot partition, administer it, clean up the registry,
> remove viruses if any, etc? The Windows installation seems to be so
> defective as to be quite useless so I am trying to think of a good
> strategy for dealing with the situation.
>
> Thanks in advance for any and all advice.
>
> Boris.
> _______________________________________________
> CentOS mailing list
> CentOS at centos.org
> http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
>
The Helix LiveCD for forensics does registry editing, av scans, ...
i would be surprised if SysRescCD doesn't give you registry editing as well.
f-prot cd for virus scans as well.
Not to mention the rootkit detection cds.

Make sure you update the virus definitions after boot up with the live cds.